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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050068">Rest</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wxlves/pseuds/Wxlves'>Wxlves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda &amp; Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Mild descriptions of violence, Self-Destructive Behavior, technically twilight world but still general enough to be any game, this is literally just angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:15:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050068</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wxlves/pseuds/Wxlves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What’s left for a hero after his job is done?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The blade seemed to hum in approval as it cut through the air, already slick with black blood. The monsters fell before his sword, heads rolling, blood spraying, flesh rending, and through it all he leapt. Dancing, it could it be called, for all the grace held in those swift feet, the agility in each movement of his arm, his wrist, his hand. Death made beautiful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The people had whispered, once, of a hero in green. A brave soul who faced unimaginable dangers and saved their precious Hyrule. </span>
  <em>
    <span>So young, </span>
  </em>
  <span>some whispered, pity in their eyes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>So young to be burdened with such a task.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Others merely wondered at his strength. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Blessed, </span>
  </em>
  <span>they said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>invulnerable, </span>
  </em>
  <span>his skin rumored to be like iron.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Cursed, </span>
  </em>
  <span>still others cried out. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Only something cursed with darkness could hold that kind of power. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They were all wrong. He wasn’t blessed, he wasn’t cursed. The people, with their rumors, they all missed the point — heaven or hell, good or evil, neither truly mattered. He had saved their lives, saved their kingdom, and that was good enough for many.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After the kingdom was saved and the Twilight Queen had gone back to her lands, the hero was left with little. Through hardship and trial, pain and rage and loss and endless suffering, he had been forged into Hyrule’s weapon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sword, once sharpened and whetted with blood, was not meant to return to the sheath. Just the same, with restless mind and restless body the hero ached for a purpose, a purpose not destined to him. He had fulfilled his divine role.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a way he envied the Hero’s Shade, saddled with eternal duty. For the centuries to come he would share his skills with whatever green-clad, bright-eyed, brave-hearted young soul recruited to the cause of saving this miserable kingdom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now what? Now the famed hero slipped between the shadows of the kingdom, finding the darkest, most rotten hells he could. Even with the Dark King gone, monsters still lurked in caves and ruins, hiding in the blackness until he sought them out. His body moved on instinct, his mind blank as the monsters’ blood pooled at his feet. Wiping the blade clean he would melt into the shadows once again, forever searching for new prey. Worse than any hell, it was the cyclical, enduring monotony of purgatory. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hylia, in her call to duty, had made what could have been a normal, happy boy into a weapon. She took the soft clay, born of the earth, earnest and sweet, and through pain turned that into hardened steel. The true King-Killer was not the Master Sword but the man who wielded it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he hated what he had become. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could no longer sleep through the night. His bones ached. His skin, once a smooth gold, was marred with white scars while his face, handsome in youth, bore the vicious reminder of the power of a Dracenae’s jaws. After so long spent fighting he knew nothing else. The only time he felt alive, </span>
  <em>
    <span>truly </span>
  </em>
  <span>alive, was when he was killing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes he grew sick of it, of the darkness and pain and war. He would seek out the worst of the worst, the most feared monster in the land, the one children whispered about over fires in the safety of their homes. And yet, each and every time, he bested them. He could not lose; Hylia’s hand protected him in the cruelest way possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was coming on two decades since the hero had slipped from the light into shadows and he had truly had enough. His destination lay in the unforgiving wastes to the west where the Gerudo once lived. Now there was only blowing sand, a crumbling castle, and, most important, an ancient stone obelisk. Carved into that stone, rough-cut stairs spiraled into the depths of the cold ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first floors of the Ordeals were passed with ease. The hero hurried past the fairy’s spring, he had no intention of being sent back to the surface. The next floors brought harder and harder challenges. Before, only his wit and sheer will to live had kept him alive through all one hundred floors — now, reckless and weary, his sword arm was leaden before fifty. The two Darknuts residing on the final floor proved to be his undoing. He caught one off balance, delivering a sweeping slash that cut through the gaps in its armor. It roared in pain and he spun, turning to meet the blade of the second in midair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too slow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sword, longer than the hero’s entire body, pierced through his torso as he raised his own blade with a snarl on his face. He dropped to his knees, sword clattering from his numb grip as his hands went to the metal through him. The Darknut, robotic, had released its blade the moment it struck link. Both armored goliaths returned, eerily, to the resting positions they had begun in, only one still bearing its weapon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And why should they not? The hero was dead, nobody could survive a death-blow like that. As darkness crept in on his vision, the hero whispered a thank you to the unfeeling masses before him. They did not hear, did not even live, merely existed as replaceable soldiers, impassive to the man whose lifeblood spilled into the dirt at their feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even so they had granted the hero, at long last, the rest he so relentlessly sought. </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>¿¿Idk what this is??<br/>Found it in my google drive from a few months ago</p></blockquote></div></div>
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